It took a while, but Bret Easton Ellis has finally apologized to Kathryn Bigelow for publicly stating on Twitter that her professional accolades were more to do with being “hot” than having any actual talent.

Less Than Zero, American Psycho author Ellis made his initial comments on December 5 (6, if on Euro time) during a discussion about likely Oscar contenders.

“Kathryn Bigelow would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she’s a very hot woman she’s really overrated.”

Then:

“Kathryn Bigelow: Strange Days, K-19 The Widowmaker, Blue Steel, The Hurt Locker. Are we talking about visionary filmmaking or just OK junk?”

Ellis’ tweets picked up considerable traction and criticism including comments from screenwriter Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Lost) and actress Ellen Barkin, who both sent tweets suggesting Ellis was jealous of Bigelow’s success, The Guardian notes.

In it, Ellis admits that his “Twitter-casual response to both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle awarding Bigelow [“Best Director of the Year”] and awarding her new movie Zero Dark Thirty was based on his own underwhelmed reaction to Mark Boal and Bigelow’s previous film effort — The Hurt Locker.

Ellis makes the point that when The Hurt Locker won six academy awards in 2010 — including “Best Motion Picture of the Year”‘ and “Best Achievement in Directing” — he had also tweeted remarks about Bigelow being a “beautiful woman” and received little to no hostile comeback.

Putting that down to the fact that, back in 2009, he “didn’t have 364,000 Twitter followers,” Ellis adds:

“Twitter seems like a writer’s funhouse to me, not something I’d use ‘seriously’ to ‘hurt’ someone. I don’t want to hurt anybody … I guess I thought as a gay man, I could get away with since my supposed vitriol about Bigelow was coming from another ‘oppressed’ class. But in 140 characters it didn’t land that way.”

For her part, Bigelow — noted director of the films such as multi-Oscar winning The Hurt locker, Near Dark, K-19 The Widowmaker, Point Break, and Strange Days — has picked up a clutch of awards and nominations for her latest Osama Bin Laden hunt film, Zero Dark Thirty.

As for Ellis, after stating in his Daily Beast article that he would be taking a “bit of a break” from social media over the Christmas holiday, his latest comments on Twitter aboutZero Dark Thirtyread:

It’s not yet known if Bigelow has expressed a private or public response to Ellis’ apology, but perhaps the strangest thing about the whole episode is Ellis’ admission that when he first made his comments about Bigelow he hadn’t actually seenZero Dark Thirty yet.